Documents Show Schlumberger Probed Payments Made In Yemen

New documents emerged in the investigation into possible foreign bribery at Schlumberger Ltd., the world’s largest oil-services company.

Associated Press

The documents, which were seen and reported on by the Wall Street Journal, showed that company employees raised concerns in 2008 about payments for cars the company rented from Yemeni government officials at above-market rates, and about contracts signed with a company the employees knew had ties to the Yemeni President.

The company is already under investigation for possibly violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bans the bribing of foreign officials in order to obtain or retain business. That investigation is focused on contract payments made several years ago to a consulting firm headed by a nephew of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. At the time of the payments, Schlumberger was seeking to create an oil-exploration databank for the country.

Schlumberger didn’t comment for the story, and the Justice Department didn’t comment on its ongoing investigation into the company.

The report says the documents showed that the company tried to cancel the contracts out of fears of violating anti-bribery law, but that it sometimes faced “retribution.” The documents said one truck packed with explosives commonly used in the industry was hijacked in a volatile area soon after the company had canceled a contract with a government official.

That truck was later recovered, and no one was hurt.

For years, Schlumberger rented cars from officials with Yemen’s Petroleum Exploration and Production Authority, or PEPA, far above market rates–one example in the report said the company paid almost seven times the market rental rate for three years to an official who signed off on contracts awarded to oil-service firms, including Schlumberger. The company eventually canceled that contract, according to the report, and it’s unclear how much–if any–business Schlumberger received during the contract .

The current chairman of the PEPA didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Other documents cited in the Journal story identify a customs broker who received $280,000 in payments from Schlumberger from 2004 to 2008, but when an internal investigation revealed the broker’s ties to the Yemeni president and the company tried to terminate the contract, it found its imports stalled and decided to reinstate the broker. Schlumberger managers tried to find a new broker but were ultimately unsuccessful.

The broker said to the Journal its chairman was unavailable for comment.

Comments (1 of 1)

Well you will corruptions everywhere, but when we talk about Schlumberger they claim to be the honest company in the world having their policies in place, in reality its other way around. They have French approach like my friend mentioned about TOTAL (Another French Company)

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